NATIONAL GALLERY, January 19. Two thirds of staff told jobs will be privatised.
FINE art can be a profitable business, hoarded as private wealth, or patronised for prestige by big business,…Read more…
Shorter inspections will end the stressful ‘cliff-edge’ experience for schools
Sean Harford is national director, schools at Ofsted The title of next Tuesday’s debate is “What’s the top priority: inspection or improvement?” I believe that this is the wrong…Read more…
Time for energy to reconnect with democracy?
This is some of the harm in a dysfunctional energy market. Over the past decade, energy prices have risen at a much faster rate than overall inflation, as our chart shows, with consumers’ gas prices rising faster than electricity. Reports suggest that wholesale gas prices for this year are…Read more…
“The hardest part of the job is supporting service users living with dementia”
It is extremely time consuming although we are expected to do our tasks in
30 mins.Read more…
“travel time is always taken off our rotas so they can cram more calls in”
I work for a large homecare provider. We are always short staffed, so travel time is always taken off our rotas so they can cram more calls in. When we complain the answer is to cut the times of the call down.
I do not think it right, if a client is paying for 30 minutes care and only getting 15 it is wrong. When new care workers start they should have a week’s training, then they should have two week shadowing. They are lucky if they four or five days. We complain to the office there is always an excuse. Complain too much they can cut my hours which I cannot afford. It is a zero hour contract which should be banned.
– Eleanor, homecare worker
“You can’t leave somebody half dressed or without food just because they have run out of call time”
In the last ten years I have seen many changes to the homecare service unfortunately none of them have been for the better. When I first started working in home care if I needed extra time to complete the care it wasn’t a problem. Now we are told if th…Read more…
Young people and the jobs recovery
I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s employment statistics. While the employment recovery is going well, young people seem to be the last to benefit from it, with the number of unemployed under-25s actually having gone up a little. The other weak point is pay –…Read more…
The Right to Strike is a Human Right
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) have called for a day of action on the 18th February in support of the right to strike. Currently employer organisations, including the CBI, are…Read more…
Using public procurement for a fairer Scotland
More than £10bn of Scottish taxpayers cash goes on buying goods and services in the private sector. This procurement activity could do much more to deliver the Scottish Government and other public…Read more…
Morning Star comment: Divide and rule is the oldest trick in the book
Comment in today’s Morning Star. Scapegoating immigrants is a way to distract attention from the economic crisis and who caused it. You have to go back to the 1930s to find anything worse in…Read more…
What’s REALLY bugging Eurozone hardliners about Syriza?
The brinkmanship and rhetoric surrounding the renegotiation of Greece’s memorandum with the Troika was ramped up this week as a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers on Monday broke up without…Read more…
Bright Blue on migration: bright enough, but in the end, too blue
Soft left Conservative think tank Bright Blue has hit the headlines with a new report on what the centre right should be saying about migration this week. In what was mostly newsworthy as an attack from within on the ridiculous Government policy of capping net migration, there are some good ideas,…Read more…
Defend the right to strike – under threat at home and abroad
Today a global day of action in defence of the right to strike is being called to highlight the serious attacks on fundamental union rights. The Institute of Employment Rights reports that the…Read more…
When working people worldwide don’t get justice
What should happen when a company abuses its workers? When, for example, people are injured as a result of working in unsafe conditions, or victimised because they speak up for others? In this country, thanks to the trade union movement, if workers are…Read more…
Why the ILO must continue to police the right to strike
As deepening economic inequality shows that strong trade unions are needed more than ever, employers are engaged in a ruthless assault on one of the most fundamental labour laws of all. But, as the…Read more…
The Great White Elephant on the Euston Road
Regular readers of this blog (Sid and Doris Blogger) who have been disappointed by my recent silence (attributable to the volume of work some of us are facing at branch level) will note that – in the run up to tomorrow’s meeting of the UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) I am blogging again…Read more…
Priorities for public service unionism
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/100000th-pcs-member-signs-up-to-direct-debit
In what we all hope are the last weeks of a Government which has shown a more consistently visceral hostility to trade unionism than any of its predecessors since the early nineteenth…Read more…
Uncovering the Past, Making Sure There’s No Cover-up in Present
ARCHEOLOGICAL excavations due to start soon at Liverpool Street, in London’s central business district, will uncover the bones of many poor, forgotten Londoners, buried in part of the 16th…Read more…
UNISON standing up to racism
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/stand-up-to-racism
It’s good to see UNISON’s high profile support for the forthcoming demonstration against racism, in London on 21 March.
As the continuing crisis unleashed by the banking collapse continues to work …Read more…
Climate actions speak louder than words
Through union lobbying efforts, we got back “The just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work” in the UN’s 88-page draft treaty agreed last week in Geneva. Given the massive changes in the world of work that lie ahead, it’s a relief to see core trade union issues back in play…Read more…